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LSJ Curriculum

LSJ Curriculum

The Theories of Literature and Social Justice seminar is the cornerstone of the first- year experience for all students in the English graduate program at Lehigh. . Students also have the opportunity to take, each year, a seminar on the practice of Digital Humanities or Public Humanities to provide skills for disseminating knowledge about literature and social justice to broader publics . Every semester, department faculty teach a range of seminars at the graduate and undergraduate levels that address the social justice implications of literary works from a range of historical periods and drawing on varied theoretical traditions. M.A. students may opt to produce a Masters thesis, whose requirements are flexible enough to accommodate both traditional modes of literary scholarship and digital or public humanities projects that will prepare them for doctoral programs in English or for a range of social justice related careers The Department is similarly committed to supporting a range of models for doctoral dissertations—an increasing number of which, in recent years, have integrated digital or public humanities components.
Theories of Literature and Social Justice
The Theories of Literature and Social Justice seminar is a dynamic, evolving classroom experience. Taught by a rotating group of English faculty, this course sets the tone for robust conversations about the role literature plays in our department, in individuals’ lives and in the world around us. Each spring semester, two English department faculty members with interests in diverse historical or theoretical fields teach collaboratively from a syllabus of their own design that puts their particular expertise into a dynamic conversation—a dialogue that seeks to inspire innovation and challenge students to think and write anew.
In each iteration of the seminar, students will encounter a range of theoretical models and critical paradigms for conceptualizing the relationship between literature and social justice. Students will also have opportunities to experiment, in their own writing, with these theoretical concepts in their analysis of literary works from disparate historical eras In all of its iterations, the Theories of Literature and Social Justice seminar enables students to explore these fundamental questions: How have literary works (and other forms of expressive culture) enabled writers and readers to understand the dynamics of injustice at work in their societies? How have literary works contributed to those structures of domination, exploitation or inequality? How have they enabled writers and readers in varied historical settings to imagine more just ways of life?